Remembering Last Year’s Fruitful Ministry with Thankful Hearts

The faithful churches SGA serves are already busily preparing to reach even more children with the Gospel this Christmas season through Immanuel’s Child outreaches.

Andrei, an SGA-supported missionary pastor in Russia, looks back at last year’s ministry with anticipation of what God will do this year. “Our first project last Christmas season was a visit to several villages in the Krasnoyarsk region. A team from Krasnoyarsk was to accompany us with a Christmas play. We expected both adults and children would be waiting for us. We had lots of snow and we were worried that we would not be able to get there. For example, if after a snowfall we had windy weather, then even off-road vehicles would not be able to get us there and bring us back. However, everything went well and we safely returned home—although in one place we had to dig snow for two hours. The leading car missed the track in the road and sank into a drift, but with the help of the second car and shovels, we were able to solve this problem. We did not worry much, because the program was over the same day and all we allow for time was to stay there for supper.

The next day we were worried a bit because it was windy, and on the way home we had to drive through snow piles. The driver of the leading car was really worried about the next day, saying that we would not get to the village we planned unless the wind died down. He even told me that we would have to cancel our outreaches, because we simply would not get there. Also, the road was a dead-end. All I could do at that point was to invite them to pray. At night after supper, we prayed and asked those who were left in Krasnoyarsk and were in touch with us to pray for the next day and for our difficult journey. On the next day when we hit the road, we were witnesses of the miracle from the Lord. The road was nice and clean, which meant that the maintenance crew was on the road for the whole night. We drove and rejoiced because we saw the answers to our prayers that reached heaven, and that our local authorities worked on their day off, which prepared our way. They did not know about our prayers.

In one village, God opened the schools for our Christmas outreach there. On January 12 we were welcomed by 300 children from three local public schools—grades 3 to 6! When we arrived to prepare the assembly hall for the play, we noticed that there was a large crowd of children together with their teachers marching to the school from another school.

We also had two more Christmas performances for children in two more other villages in the Bogotolsky area. A team from the church in Uzhur visited us with a puppet show. We thank God for the open doors for these Christmas outreaches, and for the opportunity to have gifts you helped provide for both the children and adults in the northern villages of the area. Please pray for this year’s Christmas ministries and subsequent ministries of our church afterward.